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Fast & Fabulous Green Tea Ice Cream (Without Icecream Maker)

As it gets warmer, we start thinking about something cold… One thing everyone seem to love is green tea ice cream!

Just like California rolls, it’s invented in the kitchen of a Japanese restaurant in the US, and imported back to Japan. The first taste of this for me was in the US. I loved it, even though I wasn’t a big fan of matcha (green tea powder) because its bitterness… When mixed with sweet richness of ice cream, the freshness of matcha shines and creates a really nice harmony, without any trace of bitterness. Ingenious invention!

The challenge is, a good green tea ice cream is hard to find. Maybe at a Japanese restaurant, but wouldn’t you want to eat it at home too? Maybe after non-Japanese dinner?

Did you know you can make ice cream in the food processor at home, without an ice cream maker, nor the painful effort of digging up that partially frozen ice cream every hour for 10 times? It’s super easy and tasty – and cheaper too!

All you need to do is to swirl cream, eggs, and sugar first in your food processor. When it’s partially frozen, swirl it again, and freeze it. That’s it.

The beauty of making ice cream at home is that you can control what goes in to the ice cream, not just the quality but also change the amount of sugar and flavorings to suit your taste. You can also control the quantity, so that you can always eat freshly made ice cream. It helps with your portion control too! No more half gallon container of ice cream that takes up half of the freezer for several months with lots of ice crystals inside.

So here is fast and fabulous food processor ice cream recipe. You can also experiment with vanilla, chocolate, etc.

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks

3-4 TBS sugar

2 TBS green tea powder (Matcha), mixed with a little bit of water to form smooth paste. For the best results, use easy mix kind, you can add the powder directly into the cream without any water. Do not substitute with regular green tea or powdered green tea for this. It’s a lot weaker, it won’t work in ice cream.

1 1/4 c heavy cream (chilled, but not whipped)

Directions:

Combine first 3 ingredients and swirl it in food processor for 4-5 seconds.

Add cold heavy cream, and swirl it again for another 4-5 seconds.

Put it in a shallow metal pan (freezes faster), and freeze it about 3 hours until almost frozen.

Put the ice cream back in the food processor and process it again until it’s creamy and consistency of soft ice cream.

Put it back in the metal pan and freeze. When it’s frozen, this delicious ice cream is ready to eat!

Try it this Saturday… If you start in the morning, it should be ready to eat by the afternoon.

You can certainly impress your family and friends with this green tea ice cream!

WE LOVE THIS RECIPE! What a great idea? Green tea ice cream is such a winner. and we guess this works with ginger orange and many other creative combinations. Now if you only come up with a great Moche recipe? not sure how this could be done? Thanks, s

Thanks for the comment, sherry.
Yes… this will work with other creative combinations…

So about moche recipe… Are you talking about the recipe to make this into a mochi ice cream like those at the restaurant? or just Japanese mochi to eat separately? Let me know… I do have the recipe (FYI… making mochi ice cream is takes quite a bit of work.)

Thank you for sharing! My sister and I were just talking yesterday about trying to make ice cream without an ice cream maker. I can’t wait to tell her it’s possible. And I love green tea ice cream. Can’t wait to give this a try!

Thanks for the comment! Yes, it is possible and easy. It’s delicious with other ingredients or just with vanilla. (If you have some, use vanilla beans for the best results!) Let me know how it turned out.

Nice! This sounds so delicious- you should check out my green tea and ginger martini at http://tokyoterrace.wordpress.com
Maybe you could make it with the ice cream instead of the green tea! Nice recipe!

Thanks, Rachel! I’ve never made ice cream with vodka in it, so when you try it, let me know how it turns out.

For ice cream, make sure to use Matcha green tea powder, and not regular green tea or ice tea, as in cocktail. Regular green tea’s flavor is too subtle and will be lost in the cream. This is the same if you want to make green tea panna cotta.

I like your idea to add ginger syrup in ice cream… with or without matcha powder. (Please reduce the amount of sugar accordingly.)

Thank you for your comment, Crystal! I couldn’t wait either, and ended up eating a little bit of the matcha cream before freezing, and right after the second processing. lol.
Let me know how you liked it. : )

Hi Simone, thank you for your comment!
This recipe works for other flavors. I often make this with vanilla beans. Heavenly!
If you want to make green tea ice cream, you pretty much need green tea (matcha) powder. Using regular green tea will not work.
Where do you live? Depending on the place, I can suggest a place you can get some, or there are many available online. Good luck!

Hi Donna,
Thanks for your comment. I don’t have an ice cream maker, but I think you can use the same ratio. Or you can follow cuisinart vanilla ice cream recipe and use matcha as flavoring instead of vanilla. It’s best to add matcha gradually, and taste the mix several times to determine what you like the best…. Some powder are stronger than others. Please note I like things less sweet, so you may want to add more sugar if you like things sweeter. (and if you use more sugar, you may need more more green tea powder to balance the sweetness.) Let me know how you like it.